Funding the Future

I did this podcast yesterday, even if the thumbnail picture might be a decade old: The podcast has been viewed 64,000 times so far.

The Guardian has noted this morning that: Andy Burnham has told officials to rip up their plans for how to fix Thames Water and present him with more radical options for what to do with the stricken company.

As the FT noted in an editorial last night, when discussing the riots in France at the weekend: One reason the [French] government has struggled to defuse the high school protests, which now threaten to swell into something more generalised, is they have…

We published this short video on YouTube last night, beginning a series of short videos that will take us up to the Budget.

Britain is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with more than £12 trillion in financial wealth.

This piece arose from a conversation over breakfast in the Murphy household this morning.

The list of places where riots took place in France over the weekend feels like the list of places a couture house might boast of hosting its stores, but not right now.

Austerity was never necessary.

I took the time to reflect yesterday.

This is a podcast I recorded a little over a week ago with my old friend Tony Groves, who runs the Echo Chamber podcast in Dublin.

Are we living through a new Gilded Age, where a small number of enormous corporations have accumulated too much economic and political power?

These were my speaking notes for the meeting I addressed this morning: SNP fringe meeting: Scotland’s economic future Richard Murphy The problem is not finding the money A government with its own currency creates money when it spends.

I am doing an SNP Conference fringe meeting with Steve Keen and others, admittedly via a Zoom link, soon after 9 this morning.

What is neoliberalism, and why has it had such a devastating impact on Britain’s economy, public services and democracy?

I struggled through this morning’s media news reports from the UK, USA and elsewhere.

Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, gave a speech yesterday about the state of the world’s financial markets and the threats that they now face.

John Fairhall asked this question on the blog yesterday in response to my post on bond sales feeding off themselves (and I have edited it slightly): Thanks for the post and the infographics.

This question was asked by someone called Steve on this blog asly night: How about a “triple lock” on wealth to help stop it’s current explosion at the very top?

When will modern monetary theory actually be put into practice?

The FT said in an email this morning, linked to this article: The Iran war has blown a near-£12bn hole in Britain’s public finances, according to FT estimates, forcing chancellor John Healey to lean on Budget tax rises and spending cuts to fund efforts to…

This is AI-generated; I fully admit it.

Much of the time, I suspect the mainstream media, including its supposedly more serious elements, fails to give us the whole truth on significant issues.

One of my first infographics was on neoliberalism.

This is the problem we are up against.

Is neoliberalism beginning to collapse under the weight of its own failures?

According to Reuters: Inflation running above the Bank of England’s 2% target appears to have become embedded in the British economy and risks getting further entrenched in wage negotiations early next year, BoE policymaker Catherine Mann said on Tuesday.

I watched a series of news broadcasts last night, all of which referred to what is now being called a polycrisis in France.

The Conservatives are using their party conference to put inheritance tax back at the centre of political debate.

The FT has just published this headline: As stupid headlines go, that one does take some beating.

There is something quite extraordinary about the Conservative Party apparently deciding that cutting inheritance tax should be a centrepiece of its attempt to recover its electoral fortunes.

A story in the FT this morning suggests that the insurance industry is preparing for potentially multimillion-dollar claims arising from AI agents acting beyond their developers’ control.

Kemi Badenoch has set out her vision for a new Conservatism in ‘The Right Way’.

As the Telegraph reports this morning: BT has rescued TalkTalk from administration in a £400m deal that raises competition concerns.

The event that we held in Ely on Saturday was, I think, a success.

Kemi Badenoch’s The Right Way, published yesterday to mark the start of the otherwise neatly irrelevant Tory party conference, matters because it is not really a manifesto.

What is tax really for?

Our event in Ely yesterday was, I think, a great success.

How do you actually change the world?

Please excuse me if I am distracted today.

The G7 statement on releasing diesel stocks, issued yesterday, was a pile of nonsense that eventually only indicated that all these nations still live in total fear of the USA and Donald Trump.

The Telegraph has this to say in an email this morning: Andy Burnham’s first three months in Downing Street have been, by and large, smooth sailing.

What is money?

The Guardian has reported this morning that: Ministers are working up sweeping plans for welfare changes including scrapping a key disability benefit for under-25s and replacing it with a multibillion-pound package of support to get into work, the Guardian

My View on … Tax Richard J Murphy October 2026 ____________________ This post is part of an ongoing series in which I set out my views on significant issues in economics, political economy, politics, taxation, and accounting.

As the UK approaches the Budget, one phrase is going to be repeated again and again is “fiscal headroom”.

As many readers here will know, we are holding a Funding the Future event in Ely on Saturday.

My old friend, Larry Elliott, is in The Guardian today saying: To make a real difference, [Burnham and Healey] need to tackle head-on the nostrums of the past four decades.

Andy Burnham has raised the possibility, in his Labour Party conference speech and subsequent comments, that the UK might be on a path back to the EU, suggesting rejoining might be on his agenda now that he is in charge.

AI could cost you a fortune, and not because of the price of a ChatGPT subscription.